MWC: No expansion

That huge, tornado-like exhalation you hear is Western Athletic Conference commissioner Karl Benson, breathing a gigantic sigh of relief after the Mountain West Conference elected today to stand pat at 10 members, and abstain from plucking even more members from his already depleted league.

With only seven football-playing members, the Western remains in a tenuous situation, and will likely stay there for the foreseeable future. But it’s certainly better than where it would have been had the MWC followed through on its reported plans to pilfer Utah State and San Jose State.

Combined with the recent passing of NCAA legislation that allows the WAC to remain intact, that’s two straight life-saving breaks for Benson and Co. Nobody in the country needed them more.

Even as reports circulated that the departures of Utah State and San Jose State were only a matter of time, dissenters questioned the logic. If MWC commissioner Craig Thompson was stressing quality, why look at these two? The former has a quality men’s basketball program and not much else, and the latter doesn’t even have that.

Simple: Money. Or rather, TV money, the driving force behind modern athletics. As outlined in this great piece by Honolulu Star Advertiser reporter Ferd Lewis, the conference was apparently less excited about the additions than was its TV partner, Comcast.

And with preferred targets like Houston and SMU having begged out, that left choices that probably would have hurt the MWC more than helped, as explained here by ESPN’s Andrea Edelson.

In the end, it was a wise choice. Neither school would have added much long-term value, even with the ability to hold a conference championship game. Surely, better options will present themselves to the MWC in future rounds of conference movement, which promises to be a way of life in college football over the next few years.

From the Western’s perspective, the MWC’s lack of interest in either school is reassuring, in more ways than one. Not only will its ranks remain intact for the immediate future, it’s a strong indication that the current members aren’t all that attractive.